With the redrawing of district maps for 2012 New York will lose 2 congressional seats.
While the process that will be used for redrawing is currently being battled out and the final results of that battle completely unknown the odds are that an incumbency protection plan will be agreed upon by the Senate Republicans and Assembly Democrats and signed by the Democratic Governor. This plan will likely be one in which one upstate republican held district and one downstate democratic held district will be dismantled.
Given that assumption, what is the impact of the NY-26 special election on redistricting?
Some have speculated that NY-26 will "go away" with redistricting. This is not the case. NY-26, in some shape, form and number, will continue to exist after redistricting.
1. the population of western New York is such that it will continue to be home to four districts as is currently the case.
2. due to the larger size of districts (717,707 rather than the current 654,360) these districts will expand more towards the central part of the state.
3. based on the predominantly democratic populations of Buffalo and Rochester, at least two of those districts will be democratic-friendly.
4. two of those districts, based in the rural areas of Erie and Monroe Counties and the rest of the rural counties of western New York, can easily be drawn as republican-friendly districts.
5. every angle I can imagine points at central New York's NY-25 district currently held by Ann Marie Buerkle being the one dismantled. She is the weakest republican rep. She was not really supported by the Republican Party in 2010. She is in the strongest democratic district held by a Republican. Her fund raising is non-existent. She barely won... 567 votes... in 2010. Dan Maffei is already preparing for a rematch. If the Republicans are going to have to give up a seat they may as well give up the one they will probably lose anyhow and work instead to preserve and strengthen the districts they are likely to hold.
6. it is entirely possible to draw western New York with three democratic-friendly districts and only one republican-friendly district.
Maps on the flip.
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